The United Kingdom is preparing mass production of interceptor drones to shoot down the Shahed. The plans are for approximately 2,000 devices per month, with subsequent shipment to Ukraine.
The United Kingdom is preparing mass production of interceptor drones to shoot down the Shahed. The plans are for approximately 2,000 devices per month, with subsequent shipment to Ukraine.
According to Military, the British Minister for Defence Preparedness and Industry, Luke Pollard, stated that the OCTOPUS project is in the negotiation stage and could be launched in the coming months. Initially, production will be deployed in Britain, and the supply chain will be built flexibly to quickly adapt to changing Russian attack tactics.
This is an interceptor created in Ukraine with the support of British engineers. On the battlefield, it has already proven that it is effective in shooting down Shahed/"Geran-2». The key advantage is the price: the unit is much cheaper than an air defense missile, so a targeted interceptor saves resources and allows you to increase the density of defense without «shooting» with expensive ammunition.
Pollard emphasized that the monthly volume of ~2,000 units will allow for a stable supply of Ukrainian air defense. In parallel, London and Kyiv are working on other joint projects — in particular, the production of glide bombs. The format of cooperation involves the constant exchange of experiences from the front and the refinement of systems based on the results of real combat applications.
The British government has previously called the interceptors a key element of a future «drone wall» in Europe: they are planned to be deployed along the borders of NATO allies, as well as used to cover critical infrastructure and military facilities. Scaling up the serial production under OCTOPUS is seen as a way to quickly close the shortage of inexpensive means of countering swarms of attack UAVs.
The OCTOPUS project was announced by London in September: it is a Ukrainian interceptor, proven with the participation of British specialists and designed for mass production «in the thousands per month». The concept is to give the Armed Forces of Ukraine a cheap and technologically simple tool against the «Shaheeds» in order to reduce the burden on expensive air defense systems and improve the economy of air defense. Britain is also promoting the idea of a «drone wall» for NATO’s eastern flank, where OCTOPUS should become one of the key modules.
Previously, dev.ua wrote about how Ukrainian Skyeton and British Prevail Partners are creating the first joint British-Ukrainian venture to produce Raybird drones.
